'I'm shocked!' CNN expert blasts Trump team for missed chance to bury Cohen
May 20, 2024
Former President Donald Trump's one-time attorney and fixer Michael Cohen admitted during cross-examination on Monday that he stole $30,000 from the Trump Organization through fraudulent invoices, a huge revelation that could potentially give Trump's defense a way to bring down the case.
But they may have already blown their chance to do so, said former prosecutor Laura Coates on CNN.
The problem, she said, is that Trump's team missed the boat on connecting Trump's apparent lack of awareness of the stolen money to the possibility he was unaware of the whole underlying scheme to reimburse adult film star Stormy Daniels, which would cast doubt on his having deliberately falsified business payments as the prosecutors charge.
Trump's attorney, noted anchor Jake Tapper, "Does not underline ... you did this and that's larceny, that's illegal. And so we should know that some of this memo includes an inflated bill, but we should not, use that to discount the rest of it. She didn't connect the dots and she didn't, like, explain to the jury this is a crime that you're confessing to."
"And I am shocked that they did not do so, because this has given such ammunition as to possibly fatally undermine the prosecution's case," said Coates. "You want to go through, ad nauseum, all the reasons why you're fronting why this is not somebody that has been a truth-teller his entire life or with the organization. They went to such great pain to talk about his criminal convictions and his lies in the past — frankly, [Trump attorney] Todd Blanche also did on day one and two. Now we're in day three of cross-examination. But not to front it when it goes to the very core of the matter?"
After all, she continued, this is something distinct from all the other lies Trump's defense has gotten Cohen to admit to: "You've lied to the press in the past. You have lied about whether or not the payment was made and all these different things. Now this goes to a very simple question that Todd Blanche could actually say and really wrap his case on and say, so just to be clear, Donald Trump had no idea that you were giving him fake invoices with inflated payments to actually repay him? No. Well, then you leave it there and the jury can then in summation have it ... he didn't know about falsified records and invoices. He wasn't aware of this. All you have to support is he approved and he's admitted to you that he didn't even give him accurate invoices. That can leave more than maybe a seed of reasonable doubt, which is really what he needs."
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"Now, the prosecution has got to try to rehabilitate," Coates added. "They have got to try to say something they've got to rehabilitate their own credibility as to why they did not front it, why they seem to be at least seemingly dismissive. But as we began in this entire discussion today, the jury may be receiving it differently. It may have landed with the jury, they may say to themselves, all right, we've heard this, but we knew that."
Watch the video below or at the link here.
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